Xenophilia
by cofax
Summary: Post-ep for DWTB. She is alone, and there is no room for a baby in a Prowler.


Title: Xenophilia   
Author: cofax   
Spoilers: Dog With Two Bones   
Rating: R, graphic angst   
Summary: She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a   
prowler.   
Disclaimer: Not mine. Derivative use.   
Distribution: please let me know.   
Feedback makes me do the wacky. Send it to cofax@mindspring.com.  
  
  
  
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Xenophilia   
By cofax   
May 2002  
  
  
  
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.  
  
  
  
-- Enter here, says the Diagnosan, and she does. The doorway is   
tall and thin and opens into darkness. There is a prickle on her   
skin; she is being scanned. They took her pistol in the other   
room, and the scan misses the knife in her boot. Aeryn does not   
expect to need it.   
  
She moves forward at a warm touch on her arm, turns right, then   
left, all in darkness. The floor is smooth but dirty; she feels   
bits of debris scuff under her boots. The clinic smells; her nose   
wrinkles at the taint of urine, the sharp hint of a disinfectant,   
the tang of blood. The natives are not Sebacean but their blood   
must also be copper-based.   
  
She will do this. She will not turn back. She is not a coward,   
but every direction she turns she finds only pain. She will not   
picture his face -- John is gone, he is interstellar dust, and   
she will not cling to him. She is alone and there is no room for   
a baby in a prowler.  
  
The room is bright after the dark halls, and she puts a hand up   
to her eyes. The walls are green and orange in wobbly vertical   
stripes. In the center of the room is a clear tube suspended on   
the diagonal by thin cables. The tube is full of a pale green   
fluid and she sees an antigrav generator below it. Mounted on the   
outside of the tube are pieces of equipment she does not   
recognize.  
  
The air is clearer here, but there are other people in the room.   
One is another Diagnosan; the others are natives of this planet,   
small dark-furred anthropoids with prehensile tails.   
  
She turns sharply on the Diagnosan, and the natives startle. The   
tail of one knocks against a table, rattling some canisters.   
  
The Diagnosan warbles. -- Students. Sebaceans few here. They come   
to learn.   
  
All the nearby Sebacean planets are Peacekeeper controlled. She   
is told this clinic has experts in the physiology of many   
species. The Diagnosan claims to have operated on Sebaceans   
before.  
  
These students will learn more than they expect.   
  
It is a half-breed she is carrying, and she controls a shudder   
from the past. *Hybrids taint the race* she was told, over and   
over. She imagines his response. *So it's okay to fuck a human   
but god forbid you get pregnant? Jesus, your people are messed   
up, Aeryn.*   
  
He never understood -- she never tried to make him understand --   
how deep the conditioning went. How hard she had to fight, that   
first cycle, to overcome her training. Walking Moya's halls at   
night, caught in the overlap between what she wanted and what she   
had been trained to despise. She learned enough, the past few   
cycles, to begin to sort the dren from the borinium, but some   
things went too deep. Peacekeeper superiority was at the heart of   
every lesson, from her first hour in the creche to the final   
briefing before she left the carrier that last day.  
  
She thought, after the Royal Planet, that it didn't matter, that   
she could welcome such a child. It would *look* Sebacean, after   
all. But she was wrong.  
  
Hybrids are loathed, she has seen this. Jothee was enslaved,   
mutilated himself to hide his mixed heritage. Talyn, child of her   
heart, was doomed by his Peacekeeper genes. And Scorpius --   
Scorpius is all the evidence she needs.   
  
There is no room in this universe for a hybrid child. Especially   
a hybrid child of John Crichton. She heard him speaking to   
D'Argo, those last days on Moya. -- Scorpy said generations will   
know my name. And his laughter was bitter.  
  
What happened to Jothee is nothing compared to what would happen   
to this child. She can do that much for John.  
  
The Diagnosan steps around her, and the other Diagnosan joins it   
at the control panel for the tube. Aeryn unfastens and removes   
her boots, and the natives cluster around her as she begins to   
peel off her leathers. Their skin is hot, and they smell of   
spices, like the soup she ate in the market last night. They are   
too close. Their breath whistles as they examine her, but they do   
not touch. She unclenches her jaw and continues undressing.  
  
By the time she is naked the tube is ready. The first Diagnosan -  
- older, perhaps, or at least paler -- motions her forward. A   
doorway has opened into the tube, and the green fluid is kept   
from spilling out by a tension field. Aeryn steps onto the   
platform around the tube, and turns so her back is toward the   
opening.  
  
The air in the room is cool; the hair on her arms is erect, and   
twitches ripple across her skin. The green and orange walls hurt   
her eyes and the Diagnosans are shorter than she is from this   
height. She will remember this.  
  
This is the last moment with his child. It is inside her, and it   
is not Sebacean, it is something *else*, and John is not here.   
She thought she wanted it, and she is sure he would if he knew.   
She tries to imagine it growing inside her and she cannot. She   
thinks about Xhalax, and all she can see of mother is falling   
away, falling, and the scars on her face. Xhalax left her with   
nothing she wants to pass on to a child.  
  
She is alone and there is no room for a baby in a prowler.  
  
She bends her left knee, picks up her left foot, steps backward   
into the tube. The fluid is thicker than it looks from outside,   
warm but not hot, and there is a ledge to balance on. Then the   
fluid is up to her knee, and she shifts her weight and brings the   
other one in.  
  
The Diagnosan nods, and reaches for the door. -- Well, it will be   
well. Soon. Over fast.   
  
She nods in return, and leans back into the tube as he seals it.   
The fluid covers her body but leaves her face clear; the liquid   
is warm and soft. The tube is sealed from the outside: she cannot   
get out until they release her. She takes a deep breath, the air   
shuddering into her lungs, and another. She will not panic. This   
is why she came.  
  
Slowly the fear recedes, and her muscles relax. There's something   
in the air, something soothing, or perhaps it's in the fluid,   
absorbed through her skin. She imagines this is what a womb is   
like. It sounds like it does sometimes deep inside Moya, the   
noises from the medical technicians in the room outside filtered   
and elongated by the fluid. Senseless murmurs and burbles.  
  
A hundred microts pass as the technicians murmur between   
themselves and Aeryn rests in the surgical tube. The fluid   
sloshes softly, her mind drifts. She wonders what he is doing,   
now that she and the others are gone. She imagines him sitting on   
the edge of Pilot's console, banging pots in the galley, laughing   
with the old woman. None of it feels true, though: what feels   
true is John sitting on the bench in Command, his back to the   
stars. Not speaking.  
  
No, she thinks, that's not him. He's dead, and the loss is as raw   
as ever, undulled by the anesthetic.  
  
She feels a faint vibration and she is now fixed in place, her   
body immobile. There is a faint pressure in her lower abdomen,   
sharpening to a sudden pain. She twitches, and the Diagnosan taps   
on the transparent wall, speaks words she cannot decipher. She   
stills herself. She cannot see what he is doing: she can only see   
straight ahead.  
  
The Diagnosan manipulates a long green tube over her abdomen, and   
the other one touches some controls on the panel. The flavor of   
the air she is breathing changes, becomes more bitter. She does   
not allow herself to cough.  
  
If it is an anesthetic, it does not help much. The pressure   
begins again, more slowly this time. She can move her hands, a   
little: she curls her hands into fists as the pressure transmutes   
into pain, harder and sharper than before. It does not stop. She   
whimpers a little. She thinks, I could stop this now.  
  
There is a flurry of movement outside the tube: she sees one of   
the natives back away, gesticulating. It's hard to look down,   
but she realizes that the fluid isn't green anymore; there are   
darker swirls around her now. The voices outside become louder.  
  
The Diagnosan at the panel makes some corrections, its hands   
jerking from one control to another. There's another new flavor   
in the air, sickly sweet, and she wants to spit it out but   
breathes in. It acts quickly. The pain subsides, and she melts   
with it, her eyes closing. She is safe now, she thinks. It is   
done.  
  
Everything stops.  
  
  
  
When she wakes she is wrapped in a green cloth in a room with   
yellow and purple walls. One of the native students sits at her   
side. She moves her head, and it leaps to its feet, backs to the   
door.  
  
The anesthetic has worn off, and she aches. A grinding ache, a   
raw hole. Aeryn rolls over and pushes herself to her feet. The   
room tilts, and she braces herself against the wall. Her hand is   
fiercely white against the purple striping.   
  
-- What happened? She asks the student. She needs to stand up, to   
be on her feet now.   
  
Its head wobbles from side to side, echoed by the tail, which   
curls from left to right, the very tip twitching. -- There was   
bleeding.  
  
-- Yes, and? She sees her clothing piled on a shelf across the   
room, and walks carefully across to it.  
  
-- It is done. Fetus removed. But the tail continues curling,   
back and forth, back and forth, brushing against the door latch   
as if the student wants to leave the room.  
  
-- Where is it? She thinks to ask, as she sits on the bed to pull   
on her pants. It hurts to fasten them, and if she leans over to   
tighten her boots she thinks she will not be able to get up. She   
leaves them undone, and pulls on her shirt instead.   
  
The student does not answer, and she looks up from the clasps of   
her vest.  
  
  
  
The fetus is still alive, suspended in a tiny version of the   
surgical tube, hooked to lines, anchored in place. It is very   
very small. She did not know it would be so small. Aeryn puts a   
hand out, does not quite touch the warm surface of the container.   
Does not trace the outline of her daughter, John's daughter,   
hanging there in green fluid.  
  
The students and the Diagnosan cluster about her, murmuring and   
pointing. The other Diagnosan peers at some readouts on a   
monitor. They are fascinated by this phenomenon, a Sebacean   
hybrid. It is of great scientific interest.   
  
She is alone, and there is no room for a baby in a Prowler. *A   
hybrid child taints the race.* John is dust, Talyn is dead, and   
Xhalax fell.  
  
-- Destroy it, she says and does not leave the room until it is   
done.  
  
  
  
They told her it wouldn't hurt. They lied.  
  
  
  
***  
  
END  
  
Notes: This is not related to "In Fortune's Fist" except insofar   
as the subject matter is the same. Blame for this should be laid   
at the door of qowf, who said, "then rewrite it." So I did. Also   
Pene and Maayan, who asked for more. Beta by Marasmus and Fialka,   
to whom I owe so much.  
  
  
  
Feedback of all sorts welcome at cofax@mindspring.com.   
  
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"To deny the scientific realities of the cosmos is to place   
limits on the tools and intent of God." - Mary Doria Russell  
  
alchemy, mouldiwarps and coprophagy:   
http://mouldiwarps.shriftweb.org/ 


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